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This has been a common conversation for me over the last 5 years or so…

Most People: What is it that you do again?

Me: I help companies operate and compete in a knowledge-based economy.

Most People: Huh?

Me: I work with companies on their learning,development, knowledge management, innovation, marketing, HR and other processes to help them do business now – which is much different than how businesses have ever operated in the past.

Most People: [blank stare]

Me: I’m a consultant.

Most People: Oh…I know what they do.

Although the above is exaggerated I’m not naive enough to think that the label ‘Social Business Design’ will cause the conversation to be too much different than it is now – but I strongly applaud the team at Dachis Group for coining the term and providing a rallying cry for a whole industry [software suites, authors, consultants, etc.] of folks that will contribute to transforming organizations for a landscape that has no boundaries and relies on relationships, ideas, conversations, knowledge and all things intangible.

Social Business Design may become the next buzzword but I think it’s a simple yet eloquent and descriptive term for the results required to compete in a knowledge-based economy.  So much so that we’re incorporating it in our communication about Orbital RPM’s offerings.

And while I lend credit to Dachis Group and Altimeter Group for energizing this arena I also thank and credit the following fields for their work in what I feel provides the foundation for a transformation to operating socially [representative honorees shown in brackets - there are way too many to list]:

• Social Network Analysis [i.e. Rob Cross/Cross Networks Analytics, Valdis Krebs]
• Value Network Analysis [i.e. Verna Allee, Value Networks and team]
• Systems Thinking [i.e. Peter Senge/Pegasus Communications, iSee]
• Industrial/Organizational Psychology [i.e. Kurt Kraiger]
• Organizational Design [i.e. Peter Drucker]
• Scenario Planning [i.e. Art Kleiner]
• Organizational Learning/Knowledge Management [i.e. Etienne Wenger, John Seely Brown, Jay Cross]
• Leadership Development [i.e. Reg Revans, Steve Kerr, Michael Marquadt]
• Workspace Design [i.e. Frank Becker, Charlie Grantham, Jim Ware, Camille Venezia]
• Innovation [Peter Skarzynski, Rowan Gibson, Clayton Christensen]
• Social Marketing [i.e. Charlene Li, Peter Kim]
• Social Software developers/vendors

Combining insights from these [and other] fields brings a comprehensive solution to organizations wanting to become social businesses.  The timing is right to combine the best of what’s new [i.e. web 2.0 & social marketing] with age old approaches [i.e. communities & action learning] that will help with this transformation.

This is what we’ve been doing for the last 5 years.  Now we have a name for it.

Well I’ve been noodling [aka procrastinating] on this post awhile – given my recent interview with Inc. Magazine on selecting collaboration tools, though, I thought it was time…

For many of the organizations that I speak/work with regarding knowledge networks/communities of practice they have [or are planning on implementing] a collaboration software package with many slick bells and whistles but without a clear path and strategy for getting up and running – this often results in an empty knowledge landscape with little showing except for some bells and whistles strewn about.

Even in the CIO world it’s popular to say that collaboration and innovation isn’t about the software but what do you do in addition to buying software? 

The Iceberg in IT

The delimna I frequently witness is what I call the ‘Iceberg in IT’ conundrum.  Someone decided that people needed to collaborate more and told IT to implement a package that enables collaboration.  While a good software package is certainly a required step, I prefer to put it near last instead of first. 

Using the admittedly cliche and ubiquitous iceberg metaphor above, social software is simply the visible thing that enables collaboration to happen.  When IT is told to purchase it when there is no strategy to generate adoption, it will feel cold and barren [sorry - couldn't help it].  In order to truly affect how this can help people do their jobs there is a large amount of work that needs to done behind the scenes…hence the 7Cs of success:

• Capturing:  the notion of collaboration is foreign in many organizations so people often need to be shown what potential is there if they were to collaborate.  We always visit different geographic locations and capture [via video, audio, memory stick, etc.] what people are working on so that we can determine common topics and have some seed material to begin populating the software system.
• Connecting:  even software that’s designed to connect people will do little in that regard if left on its own.  People [especially when at the early phases] need some help connecting with one another – simple things like setting up bridge calls and facilitating conversations serve to build trust and awareness and provide nuggets of content that can be housed in the platform.
• Combining: in a dispersed organization you’re bound to find bits and pieces of similar work living in a great many places.  Helping the users combine that information using the wiki feature of a platform, for example, will show users the efficiency in working together while training them on what in the world a ‘wiki’ is.
• Contextualizing: the most effective collaboration initiatives will integrate members from an organization’s suppliers and customers and related academic institutions.  Translating that into compelling content that will make sense to your users will be critical in getting them to absorb and leverage it.
• Confirming:  similar to above, if you’re getting knowledge from various sources, care must be taken to ensure that what’s being provided is accurate information so that it can be acted upon.
• Circulating:  what good is the best information if no one knows about it?  The role of a community/network coordinator is essential in circulating news about what’s new, recent questions, etc.
• Communicating: having someone dedicated to getting the word out about the success stories in your knowledge network will go a long way in generating interest, excitement and ,of course, additional funds that will be necessary to continue operations.

Having an effective Web 2.0 collaboration platform at the center of this activity certainly will make it much easier to coordinate but the software alone [today's versions anyhow] will never replace the behind-the-scenes efforts required to start and sustain collaboration and innovation.

BusinessWeek just published an article about how groups around the world are preparing for the Knowledge Economy.

Notice the focus on the design of the physical space that they’re proposing and how that will help foster the necessary community that will be required for collaboration, learning and innovation.

Now I’m clearly a little biased in my support for this message – but that bias first came from all of the other sources that turned me on to this trend.

Using the ideas in the article, what can your organization do to prepare for the knowledge economy?  How can your workspace be configured to best support the way work happens?  How can you integrate the collaboration of your customers, suppliers and employees into the learning and innovation that will drive your organization forward?

BusinessWeek just published an article that talks about incorporating people that aren’t formally part of your organization into it’s methods for innovating.  The article profiles a video game company that leveraged a fan-base on Facebook to create a new game – and along the way they slashed development costs and even a hired a few top coders.

This philosophy of ‘crowdsourcing’ will be critical as we get further into the knowledge economy.  I encourage organizations to assess who they count on for success and then develop strategies to incorporate all of those groups into their learning/innovation pipeline.  [Note: a value network analysis is a great tool to help visualize this.]

Who does your organization count on for success [i.e. suppliers, consultants, customers,...]?  How can you incorporate their insight and suggestions into your next big idea?

I haven’t participated for quite some time but this month’s Big Question on the Learning Circuits blog was too intriguing…

If you peer inside an organization in 10 years time and you look at how workplace learning is being supported by that organization, what will you see?

The Knowledge Economy

I’ll preface the rest of the post by saying that I feel we’re currently well into a knowledge economy and that in ten years this transition will be even more apparent so my response will hinge upon that being true.  I view a knowledge economy as one being populated by workers creating and relying upon quick access to, and acquisition of, information that they need – organizations can range from construction to IT…as long as they depend on the acquisition of relevant info/knowledge in order to perform and improve they are staffed with knowledge workers in my opinion.  I do feel that the knowledge economy will bring with it different learning and development needs for the knowledge workforce.

The Truthful Answer

Quite frankly, I think the honest answer to the Big Question listed above is…not too much different from what we see today.

Just like other societal transformations, I think our move into the knowledge economy will take a long time to cement itself into the philosophies and methodologies of organizations – this includes learning departments.  There are so many factors ranging from mental models of those that have been in the industry for a long time to infrastructures and contracts that are entrenched and cannot be uprooted quickly that will prevent a speedy transition to fully supporting the needs of the workforce in a decade.

I recently wrote about the 2008 Chief Learning Officer [CLO] Magazine report on trends in the industry and the Executive Summary of this report shows no signs of much movement in the field. Do I think this will change substantially over the business landscape in ten years?  No.  I certainly feel that there will be pockets of progressive organizations that will make some great shifts [as indeed there are already several examples of this today] but for the overall learning industry to fundamentally change how it sees the world of L&D I think will take much longer.

The Wishful Answer

I hope I’m being cynical and that the above proves not to be true because I feel that the next 10 years presents an enormous opportunity for L&D to ramp up it’s organizational credibility to a place where we’re not yearning for a seat at the proverbial table…it’ll just be there waiting.

What I’d love to see of L&D departments in 10 years is one that oversees knowledge in the organization.  Departments that acknowledge that the vast majority of learning and development takes place outside of the classroom or computer [although some is better delivered in those places as well] and implement methods that reflect this ratio.

To me this looks like departments that ensures communities of practice and knowledge networks are thriving, active and supported by the right IT tools.  Ones that takes the role of redesigning the workspace [wherever it may be] of employees so that knowledge flows freely, ones that assesses the entire value network of an organization so that learning strategies can be extended to members whose performance affects that of the organization, ones that effectively integrate new-hires into their new network and provides the content they need when needed, ones that develops leaders to lead in a collaborative web and ones that promotes innovation throughput by running off of the energy created by the aforementioned methods.

The End

As I said above, I think that L&D Departments have a golden opportunity at the moment – to make this transition and show their organizations the value they can add by truly supporting the business workforce.  If this transition isn’t made I’m afraid other disciplines such as knowledge management may rush to fill the gap left by L&D.  I really see these fields merging as I think the lines between them will begin to blur – so after all this rambling, maybe that’s what things will look like in 10 years…

We’re doing work with a large organization to help them support their knowledge networks by building learning communities, increasing collaboration, etc.  Unfortunately we couldn’t get to them before they moved into their brand-spankin’ new office space because they missed a golden opportunity.

This new space is actually quite progressive – it’s touted as the first fully LEED certified building in Denver and with that comes nice aesthetics, trendy fixtures and many other neat amenities.  Where they went wrong, though, is in some of the construction decisions.  A great example of that is in the kitchen/copy rooms…

They made a great decision by putting the copiers and supplies in the same space as the refrigerator and micowave – it is intended to serve as a central spot where people will happen to be as part of their day and engage in informal conversations…thus leading to knowledge transfer and collaboration of course.

The problem is that this space is quite narrow.  When people are standing at each copier shown above it’s too cramped to walk through and certainly not inviting for an ad hoc meeting.  Same at the other end – the microwave, water machine and refrigerator are all so close together that you can barely stand at one without being in the way of someone at another.  I’ve seen many impromptu conversations spoiled by someone needing to walk through or just not happen at all because of the confining feelings generated by the space.

What opporuntiies are there with your space to foster more informal conversations?  Look at the areas with an eye for welcoming spots that have plenty of room for people to meet and chat while others that aren’t involved can easily drift past unnoticed.

I recently returned from a trip to a client’s site in the Andes just outside Cajamarca, Peru.  We were there with an elusive mission…capture knowledge.  Can it get more vague?

As we plow further into an economy centered around knowledge and the exchange of it, this exercise will become much more commonplace (I predict) but for us we needed to explain to our client that in order to facilitate the exchange of tacit knowledge, first we had to be able to show some of it.

Of course tacit knowledge, by definition, can’t really be adequately captured so we were looking for things that would serve as the catalysts of conversation, as indicators that people around the globe in similar positions were facing like challenges and developing complementary solutions.

To accomplish this I brought along six tools:

1. Videocamera: probably the most important of them all.  The power of video cannot be underestimated as a means for transferring tacit knowledge, building relationships/trust and just providing a consistent (and quick) means of getting others up to speed on complex situations.
2. Camera: For situations where video wasn’t allowed or suitable a still camera was utilized.  It has similar benefits as a videocamera…just a slightly different application.
3. Audio recorder: This was used to capture the conversations we had with people.  It was a great resource for us to go back later and revisit our conversations and hear verbatim what the person was saying as well as their tone when saying it.
4. Flash drive: Not everything we encountered was tacit knowledge.  Explicit knowledge that was contained in documents and spreadsheets is certainly valuable as well and we were easily able to snag it via the USB drive.
5. Laptop: While technically not critical for capturing, my laptop served as peace of mind that we could download our loot from the day and know it was safely saved for later use.  It also allowed us to see our pics and videos from the day and refine our strategy for the following days.
6. External hard drive: This was also for peace of mind as well as video storage.  It’s a 500 MB durable drive that I dumped video into each night.  It’s nice b/c it didn’t take up space on my laptop and it can take a beating.

This was a great trip because it yielded many tangible (or at least viewable) examples of the knowledge that people had as well as what they were seeking.  This provided the foundation for several excellent conversations with our project sponsors – it’s nice to be able to transition from talking about things such as ‘knowledge workers’, the ‘knowledge economy’ and ‘knowledge transfer’ and show a video of real-life examples of this happening at one of their locations.

What tools have you used to capture the knowledge in your organization?

Customers today are quickly becoming accustomed to connecting with their favorite brands, suppliers, vendors and anyone else they interact with commercially as opposed to being just the receiver of messages as they were only a few years ago.

The diversification of marketing strategies has become profound with the explosion of the social networking phenomenon.  Consumers have high expectations to engage with an organization as they provide feedback and are frustrated when they don’t receive a response.  In today’s connected world, delivering a strong marketing message requires listening to the consumers first. 

Orbital RPM designs and implements progressive solutions for customer communities, brand marketing, brand monitoring and competition monitoring.  We execute on a social marketing plan that allows you to not only hear the voice of your customers, but participate in an on-going dialogue with them.

Key components of this solution are the following services:

• Scenario Planning
• Value Network Analysis
• Knowledge Management
• Organizational Design
• Knowledge Infrastructure
• Social Software

True development results in lasting changes in mindset and behavior that allow a person to perform more effectively.  Too often traditional leadership development programs rely on an approach that does not produce change while delivering content that does not align with the leadership skills required for the workforce of today and tomorrow.

Orbital RPM’s leadership development solution utilizes the most effective methods for developing leaders and embeds the competencies required for leading in the information age such as managing value networks, mentoring innovation and knowledge transfer.  We leverage action learning as the foundation for our development process and then layer it with a competency profile customized for leading in a networked world.

The result is leaders that have the skills to lead your organization into the knowledge economy along with critical, tangible organizational improvements they have implemented while on their learning journey.

Orbital RPM’s Leadership Development solution is built to integrate with broader Talent Management initiatives such as succession planning, retention or compensation programs.  Key components of this solution are the following services:

• Scenario Planning
• Personal Assessments
• Social Network Analysis
• Value Network Analysis
• Action Learning
• Content Delivery
• Social Software
• Coaching